BOSTON – A quick glance at Rubby De La Rosa's line score from Monday night might indicate one of those rare, untouchable pitching performances.

While De La Rosa was less than efficient early on and got behind in the count on 13 of the 23 batters he faced, he still managed to toss a one-hit shutout over seven innings, making some key in-game adjustments to register the win.

The Red Sox offense gave him just enough as they edged the Minnesota Twins 1-0 to improve to 9-15 in one-run games this season.

"Rubby tonight got into a much better rhythm from the second inning on," said manager John Farrell. "The adjustments tonight versus five days ago was really just to establish his fastball a little bit more and seemingly got better command the more he threw it and settled in to give us seven, very good innings once again tonight."

De La Rosa went to 3-0 counts on the first three hitters of the game, but recovered with a ground out and a double play.

He walked Sam Fuld in the third and then gave up a one-out single to center from Danny Santana. But Jackie Bradley Jr. fired the ball back to the infield and Mike Napoli cut it off in front of the mound, catching Fuld rounding third. AJ Pierzynski got Fuld out in the rundown as Santana advanced to third. De La Rosa then got a ground out to end the inning.

"We played very good defense all around," said Farrell. "Particularly on that play where Jackie comes in, hits the cut off man, Nap is in position. The key position in that play is (Pedroia) going back door to ensure we've got a chance to initiate a run down before first and second. And we were able to cut down the runner at third."

Through four innings, De La Rosa had thrown 28 balls and 28 strikes, but didn't let the rough start rattle him. He retired 13 in a row after Santana’s third-inning single.

The dearth of offense from the Red Sox the last few nights continued against Minnesota.

Daniel Nava led off the fifth with a single to left and Stephen Drew followed up with another single to left. Drew, who registered his second straight two-hit night, tried to stretch it into a double and was thrown out.

But Pierzynski hit a sacrifice fly to left on a 2-0 changeup off Twins starter Kevin Correia to score Nava with the game’s lone run.

One of the keys for De La Rosa, was the 11 ground outs to two fly outs. The last time he had a similar ratio was his first start on May 31 against Tampa Bay when he also spun seven shutout innings.

That night, De La Rosa had an 11-5 groundball-fly ball ratio. But the rookie right-hander also had eight strikeouts that night. On Monday, he managed just three.

In his two outings since that May 31 shutout at Fenway, De La Rosa had almost identical back-to-back starts in Baltimore and Detroit, allowing four runs in 5.2 innings in each time. The adjustments he made since those two road starts were evident on Monday.

"The awareness to what hitters did to him in the last two starts both in Baltimore and Detroit and to go out and trust his fastball a little bit more, that set the tone," said Farrell. "More than anything I think he should have gained some additional trust in the use of that pitch. It’s 93-98 (mph), he’s got plenty to go to. Part of his learning curve is happening in front of our eyes."

De La Rosa admitted to relying more on his fastball, which topped out at 98 mph. He threw 67 fastballs compared to 29 changeups. In his previous three starts, he'd thrown 58 fastballs, 27 changeups; 45 fastballs, 38 changeups; and 39 fastballs, 46 changeups.

"I switched it around a little bit more," said De La Rosa. "I tried to use more my fastball. I didn’t throw it for many strikes, but I tried to attack the zone with it. That helped, because when I threw my offspeed it was behind their swings."

De La Rosa got eight swing-and-misses, four on the changeup.

Andrew Miller retired the only batter he saw in the eighth in relief of De La Rosa before Burke Badenhop finished off the inning with a strikeout after loading the bases. Koji Uehara pitched a clean ninth for his 15th save in as many chances.